By Herp News
A family of vicuñas at Apolobamba, Bolivia. Photo by Daniel Maydana [dropcap]C[/dropcap]orsino Huallata Ibarra was helping his parents round up their herd of llamas at their home in the Bolivian countryside when the sound of gunshots made him jump. Scanning the horizon, distant movement caught his eye. He could just make out the forms of several vicuñas — alpaca-like animals whose wool is some of the finest and most expensive in the world — seemingly fleeing from something. Ibarra, a veterinary professor at the Public University of El Alto in La Paz, knew well what the gunfire likely meant. Across their range in the high Andean plateau, vicuñas — a protected species — are increasingly targeted by poachers who leave behind a trail of dead animals stripped from the neck down of their valuable hides. “Every shot that occurs in the highlands are vicuñas being hunted,” Ibarra says. Poachers also do not hesitate to turn their guns on any human who tries to interfere. Last January, two Chilean police officers were killed at the Peruvian border when they stopped vicuña traffickers. And that same month, Ephraim Mamani Arevillca, a state conservationist and friend of Ibarra’s, was found murdered. “In Bolivia, he was the only governmental employee fighting on the frontlines against vicuña-related crooks,” Ibarra says. Poachers are presumably to blame for Arevillca’s death, although no arrests have been made. Vicuñas are herded and captured in the community of Villazón. Photo by Daniel…
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